The Stellar Nymph drifted.
Not the graceful kind of drifting either—the bad kind. The kind where space is doing most of the work and the ship is quietly contemplating its own irrelevance.
Lights flickered. Consoles dimmed. The gentle hum of the Phase-Core collapsed into an embarrassed cough and then silence.
Vex'alia stared at the dead controls.
Then she stared harder.
Then she slapped the console.
"Don't do this to me," she hissed.
Sparky floated upside down, his single lens blinking red. "Official diagnostic: the ship is experiencing what experts call being extremely out of power."
Jimmy, still breathing hard from the fight in the lab below, leaned against the bulkhead. His body hadn't quite decided what shape it wanted to be yet—his forearm briefly rippled metallic before settling back into flesh.
"So," Jimmy said, trying to sound casual while glowing faintly violet, "is this one of those situations where we coast and hope the universe is kind?"
Vex didn't look at him. "No."
"Is it one of those situations where we crash?"
"…Also no."
She finally turned, eyes locking onto him. Her tattoos pulsed slowly now, a low, thoughtful glow sliding over her chest and down her torso like bioluminescent ink deciding whether to forgive someone.
"It's one of those situations," she said carefully, "where I do something extremely stupid because it's the only option left."
Jimmy swallowed. "I feel like I should object."
"You ate a void-beast eye, rewrote your internal density, and turned your arm into industrial hardware," Vex replied flatly. "Your objection window closed hours ago."
She rose from the pilot's seat and approached the engine bay hatch. As she passed Jimmy, his Mauler-Eye flickered involuntarily.
He saw her again—not through clothes this time, but through energy. The ship's systems reflected in her body like a constellation map: neural interfaces, bio-conduits, the faint residual charge of Xylosian tech woven into her skin.
And something else.
The absence of power.
Vex stopped beside the hatch. "Jimmy," she said, not looking at him. "You said you could feel energy now."
He nodded slowly. "Yeah. Like… hunger, but smarter. I can tell where it is. Where it's supposed to go."
"Good," she said, opening the hatch.
Inside, the engine bay was dark—an enormous cavity of silent machinery, cables drooping like veins cut from a giant heart. The Phase-Core sat dead at the center, a crystalline chamber cracked and inert from the earlier fight.
Vex turned to him.
"I need you to be the core."
Jimmy blinked. "…I'm sorry?"
"The ship's systems are intact," she continued. "The conduits still work. What we don't have is a source. The Phase-Core is fried, the reserves are gone, and Syndicate patrols will be on us within the hour."
She stepped closer.
"You," she said, tapping his chest lightly, "are currently a walking energy anomaly with delusions of normalcy. I need you to feed the ship. Just enough to jump us out of orbit."
Jimmy laughed once. Nervously. "You want me to plug myself into the ship."
"Yes."
"That feels unsafe."
"It is."
"That feels deeply unsafe."
Vex smiled, sharp and unapologetic. "Welcome to my life."
Sparky drifted between them. "For the record, Jimmy, this is a terrible idea. Your probability of spontaneous disintegration is hovering around—" his lens flickered, "—sixty-eight percent."
Jimmy sighed. "I've made worse bets for pizza."
They moved quickly. Vex guided him onto the maintenance platform beside the core, hands steady, professional—though when she adjusted the harness across his chest, her fingers lingered just a second too long.
"Try not to tense up," she said quietly.
Jimmy snorted. "I am entirely tense."
She met his eyes. "If this works… I'll stop calling you 'carbon-leak.'"
He swallowed. "Motivation achieved."
Cables latched onto his suit. Interfaces unfolded like mechanical petals, pressing against his sides, his spine, the base of his neck. The suit warmed, syncing—drinking.
Jimmy gasped.
The ship rushed into him.
He felt every system at once: thrusters aching for ignition, shields whining like hungry dogs, life support whispering please. His stomach twisted—not pain, not pleasure, but something intimate and overwhelming.
"Oh," he breathed. "Oh wow. The ship is… lonely."
Vex's voice came over the comm. "Focus, Jimmy. Channel it. Don't let it pull too much."
"I'm trying!" he grunted as violet light bled from his eyes, veins glowing beneath his skin. "It's like trying to feed a city with a garden hose!"
The Phase-Core housing began to glow faintly.
Then brighter.
Then the lights snapped back on.
The Stellar Nymph shuddered—not dying this time, but waking up.
Thrusters whined. Consoles flared to life. Artificial gravity reasserted itself with a thump that knocked Jimmy to one knee.
Sparky whooped. "Power restored! Engines at forty percent! Jimmy, you're officially renewable energy!"
Jimmy collapsed back into the harness, panting. "I hate… that nickname…"
Vex rushed to him, steadying his shoulders. Her tattoos flared bright—relief, awe, something warmer.
"You did it," she said softly.
Jimmy looked up at her, eyes still glowing faintly. "So… does this mean I'm part of the ship now?"
She smirked. "Only until we unplug you."
Then, quieter: "After that… we'll talk."
The Stellar Nymph roared to life.
And somewhere in the dark, the Syndicate felt the lights come back on.
Jimmy Jones learned very quickly that being a power source came with opinions.
The Stellar Nymph didn't just use him—it routed through him.
Every time the ship's systems surged, Jimmy felt it like a deep internal tug, as if invisible hands were reaching into his chest and politely asking for more electricity, please. His heart synced to the engine rhythm. His bones hummed. His teeth buzzed like bad speakers at a dive bar.
"This is wildly uncomfortable," Jimmy said over the comm, voice echoing slightly as if the ship itself were listening. "Also, I think the port cannon just sneezed."
"That's called chargingbium feedback," Vex replied, fingers flying across the controls. "Stop anthropomorphizing my ship."
"I'm literally inside it."
"Focus."
The Stellar Nymph lurched sideways as alarms screamed.
Sparky spun in midair, lens flashing crimson. "Incoming! Three Syndicate interceptors dropping out of fold-space at close range! Identification: Iron-Gnasher gun-skiffs. Heavily armed. Lightly insured."
The viewport filled with angular black ships, their hulls studded with glowing weapon ports. One of them pulsed red.
Jimmy felt it before it fired.
"Uh—Vex?" he said. "I think they're about to shoot us with something rude."
The skiff unleashed a lance of ionized plasma that slammed into the Nymph's shields. The impact rippled through the ship—and through Jimmy.
He screamed.
Energy surged down the cables connected to his suit, tearing through his nervous system like lightning given permission. His vision went white-violet. He tasted copper and ozone.
Then—control.
Something clicked.
Instead of resisting, Jimmy leaned into it.
"Oh," he breathed, eyes blazing. "Oh, I get it now."
Vex glanced back, eyes widening. "Jimmy—what are you doing?"
"Borrowing the ship's anger."
He reached out—not physically, but internally—grabbing hold of the power flow like reins. The cannons responded instantly, capacitors whining as they charged.
"Wait!" Vex shouted. "You can't fire manually—the conduits—"
Too late.
Jimmy pulled.
The forward cannons roared.
Not clean beams. Not neat shots. This was raw, overfed power—violet-white energy ripping out of the barrels in uneven torrents. The recoil slammed back through the ship and straight into Jimmy's spine.
He laughed. Loud. Unhinged.
One of the Syndicate skiffs caught the blast head-on. Its shields evaporated. The hull didn't explode so much as cook. Armor glowed orange, then white, then sloughed off in molten sheets as internal systems fried simultaneously.
The ship went dark mid-spin and drifted, smoking.
"Target neutralized," Sparky said faintly. "Also… wow."
The remaining two skiffs scattered, circling.
"Jimmy!" Vex snapped. "You're overloading yourself!"
"I know!" he yelled back. "But it feels like I'm bench-pressing God!"
Another blast hit the shields. Jimmy absorbed it instinctively, rerouting the surge through his body and back out through the starboard cannon.
This time, the energy didn't just hit the enemy ship.
It went through it.
The beam sliced clean through the skiff's midsection, frying crew, systems, and reactor in a single, screaming line. The back half drifted away, lifeless. The front half detonated seconds later.
Silence.
The last skiff hesitated.
Jimmy could feel it—its reactor humming, terrified, fragile. He reached for it like a hand hovering over a hot stove.
Vex slammed her palm onto the console. "Jimmy. Enough."
He froze.
The cannon power bled off. His glow dimmed. The last skiff jumped to fold-space, fleeing.
Jimmy sagged in the harness, breathing hard. Smoke curled from the cables attached to him. His hands trembled, briefly flashing metallic before returning to flesh.
"I think," he muttered, "I accidentally microwaved a guy."
Vex left the pilot's seat and crossed the deck in long strides. She stopped in front of him, searching his face.
"You routed ship-to-ship weapon output through your nervous system," she said quietly. "That should have killed you."
He shrugged weakly. "Still alive. Still glowing. Still… kinda hungry."
Her tattoos pulsed—bright, conflicted, intense.
"Jimmy," she said, voice low, "you can't keep doing that. Every time you let the ship use you like that, you blur the line between crew and component."
He looked up at her, eyes tired but sharp. "Yeah. I felt that. The ship didn't care if I survived. It just wanted to fire."
A beat.
Then, softer: "But it listened when I told it to stop."
Sparky drifted closer. "Updated assessment: Jimmy Jones is now classified as a semi-sentient weapons platform. Congratulations. Please don't let this go to your head. Or do. That's usually how villains start."
Jimmy snorted weakly.
Vex reached out and disconnected one of the cables from his suit. Her fingers brushed his skin, lingering.
"We'll find another power source," she said. "Next time, we don't gamble your body."
He smiled crookedly. "You say that like there won't be a next time."
She met his gaze.
"Oh, there will be," she said. "The galaxy just noticed you pulled the trigger."
Outside the viewport, the stars stretched as the Stellar Nymph jumped.
And Jimmy Jones—scrapper, anomaly, living battery—felt the echo of cannons still ringing in his bones.
Jimmy Jones eyes fade to black as the energy use thru his body finally took it's toll.
Later on the Stellar Nymph, Jimmy's eyes snapped open.
He inhaled sharply, hands flying to his throat as if he were still screaming electricity out of his lungs. His body jolted upright on instinct alone, heart hammering like it was late for rent. For a split second, he expected to be glowing. Exploding. Or actively on fire.
Instead—silence.
He patted his chest. Solid. He flexed his fingers. Normal fingers.
"I'm alive," he said, stunned. Then louder, with relief bubbling over into hysteria: "I'M ALIVE. I don't feel like a bomb anymore!"
He swung his legs off the bunk and froze.
The weight felt… different.
Jimmy stood and looked down at himself, eyebrows climbing toward his hairline. Gone were his scavenged leathers, his patched jacket, his questionable underwear. In their place was a sleek, form-fitting suit of dark iridescent fabric that hugged every contour of his body like it had opinions about him.
"…Is this spandex," he said slowly, tugging at the thigh. "Because it's very… snug. Aggressively snug. I feel like my legs signed a waiver."
"You're welcome," Vex'alia said from the pilot's console without turning around.
Her tattoos glowed a bright, almost-too-bright white.
"Your previous clothes disintegrated during your little stellar tantrum," she continued coolly. "I issued you a Xylosian flight uniform. Consider it a loan. And a mercy."
Jimmy ran a hand down his torso, impressed despite himself. "Okay, but how did you—"
He paused.
"…How did you get it on me?"
Vex'alia turned the chair slowly, crossing one long leg over the other. Her lips twitched.
"Deployment cube," she said. "Automated. Don't flatter yourself."
Then, after a beat:
"Besides, I believe we're even now. You spent half our first meeting seeing through my clothes with those cursed eyes of yours. A brief structural assessment of you felt… equitable."
Jimmy turned a shade of red usually reserved for warning lights.
"That was an accident! These eyes just—cycle! Through spectrums! I don't control the—"
As if summoned by panic alone, the Mauler-Eye behind his left iris twitched.
The world slipped.
Metal faded. Walls peeled away into glowing layers. The Stellar Nymph became transparent—schematics unfolding over reality. And then, inevitably, her.
Energy lines. Bone. Muscle. The elegant curve of Vex'alia's spine. The rhythmic, mesmerizing beat of her dual hearts glowing like twin stars beneath her chest.
"Oh no," Jimmy squeaked. "No no no—this is bad. This is very bad. Your skeletal structure is extremely well-aligned—"
"You perverted carbon-leak!" Vex'alia shouted.
A data-slate came flying at his head.
Jimmy ducked instinctively, the movement smooth and effortless—too effortless. The slate shattered against the bulkhead.
She growled, yanked a thermal blanket over her lap, and glared at him like she was considering murder as light exercise.
"Turn. It. Off. Or I will weld your eyelids shut."
"I'm trying!" Jimmy said, slapping his hands over his eyes.
He could still see the heat signatures of his own palms.
"I need to eat something grounded! Something boring! Like bread!"
"Hate to interrupt the foreplay-by-threat," Sparky chimed in, bouncing erratically against the ceiling, "but your power surge drained the last emergency reserve I siphoned. Phase-Core is in hibernation, gravity is winning, and we are—scientifically speaking—about to fall."
The ship groaned.
Lights flickered. Displays died. The horizon outside the viewport tilted sharply upward.
"Brace!" Vex'alia shouted, diving back to the controls. "We're out of power and coming in hot!"
Jimmy grabbed the co-pilot chair. "If I'm the battery can't I just—eat a lightbulb?!"
"Unless you're hiding a fusion cell in your spine, shut up!"